It is very common in many agricultural fields and with many different agricultural crops, such as vegetables, to use plastic webs as mulch covering the rows or seed beds. The plastic webs preserve moisture, inhibit weed growth and permit fumigation of the soil.
The rows or seed beds are prepared to have a planting surface above the level of the ground between the rows. The raised beds are covered by a web of plastic and the opposite side edges of the plastic web are held down by a small amount of soil placed thereon. The crop is planted in the rows or seed beds by punching or cutting holes in the plastic web at spaced intervals and setting plants or seedlings in the seed beds through such holes.
The plastic webs inhibit weed growth and conserve moisture. In addition, the crops may be irrigated by percolating water from below into the seed beds, with such percolation being assisted by the plastic webs. A plastic web generally can be used for two successive crops and sometimes even more before it must be removed and replaced.
Currently, the only effective method of removal of such plastic webs is manually by pulling the individual webs from each seed bed and rolling the same into a large, relatively loose roll. The handling, hauling and disposal of such rolls of plastic web is laborious, time consuming and extremely difficult. In addition, disposal of such plastic rolls is by deposit in landfills which charge by volume and therefore such disposal is very expensive.
It has been previously proposed in U.S. Pat. No. 3,181,455 to mechanize the removal and collection of very large pliofilm sheeting used in disinfecting or fumigating fields prior to planting. To the best of our knowledge, this prior proposal was never actually commercially available and, even if it had been available, would not have been successful because of readily ascertainable deficiencies and disadvantages presented by the apparatus disclosed therein.
Foremost among these deficiencies and disadvantages was the drive mechanism for the apparatus. All of the operating instrumentalities were driven by the wheels supporting the apparatus for movement over the ground. Because of this drive arrangement, a large tractor or other towing vehicle was required to move the apparatus over the ground and to provide the driving force for the various instrumentalities thereof.
Another deficiency was the feed rolls which removed the plastic sheeting from the ground and fed the same to the compaction mechanism. A single pair of feed rolls cannot provide the feeding force required to remove the plastic from the ground and to feed the same to the compaction mechanism while accommodating the irregularities in the thickness of the plastic which invariably occurs.